After She's Gone (27 page)

“Mommy misses you,” she whispered, but didn’t cry as the tiny flame flickered.

She slipped into the warm water and closed her eyes. She thought briefly of her child. This was the one time of day when she allowed herself a few minutes to remember her baby’s curly hair, blue, blue eyes, and soft giggle. If she thought hard enough, she could recall the smell of her, the oh so softness of skin. Tears pulled at the back of her eyes but she would no longer cry.

Five years had passed.

She allowed herself a few minutes of grieving still, but that was all. This was her life now. She cleared her throat. Took another sip of wine. Told herself that things were better, the pain lessening, maybe eventually it would even be tolerable. Finally she opened her eyes to the incredible windows with their spectacular view over trees and rooftops to the winking lights of the city below.

So this was how the other half lived. Or was it the other one percent these days? Didn’t matter. She didn’t like it. Some of the perks were nice, of course, like the in-home gym that was handy for daily workouts, and this soaking tub with its multiple jets to massage out her muscles, tense from a twelve-hour day, but really, who needed all the luxury?

Not Rhonda Nash.

At least not anymore.

Not with the road she’d traveled.

Absurdly, wealth seemed banal to her now; well, the trappings of the very rich at least. Money had failed her. There just wasn’t enough to protect the innocent, to fight illness and death and expect to win. That, she knew now, was a fool’s game.

She would live here for now, but only until she could sell the place and every shiny, expensive thing within its walls. Hopefully this new buyer would take the albatross from her neck. After everything she’d inherited was sold, she planned to move to somewhere a lot more cozy, a lot more homey with a lot less square footage and no amazing city view. Maybe she’d get a cat. Or a dog. Or chickens. More and more people in Portland were keeping chickens these days. Whatever. She smiled a little . . . maybe she should get the chickens now and let them roam over Edwina’s five thousand square feet of opulence, scratching and clucking, pooping and shedding feathers all over the imported rugs.

Edwina’s ultramodern home had been cut into the hillside, a wall of windows three stories high with a panorama of downtown Portland and several of the bridges that crossed the Willamette. She could also see much farther east to Mount Hood rising out of the Cascades. Now, she stared through the glass. The lights of the city winked in the rain and Hood was invisible in the darkness, but not far from the mountain’s peak, in its shadow, was Falls Crossing, the town where Allie and Cassie Kramer had spent their teenage years, where their mother still lived.

And now ex-sheriff effin’ Shane Carter himself wanted an audience. That should prove interesting. Did Cassie have a confession to make and needed dear old stepdad and her estranged hubby to accompany her? Were they her little entourage of bodyguards? The woman, after all, was a mental case.

Not fair,
her mind taunted as she sipped from her glass. Ironically one of the neighboring properties, located just on the other side of the slope, was Mercy Hospital.

It was funny how tangled lives could become, how so many could brush against you only to disappear with the dawn. Again, she felt the pull on her heartstrings when she thought about loss, but she wouldn’t allow her mind to dwell in the painful hole that had once been her life. Instead, as always, she turned her attention to her work, always her work.

When the Kramer case had first landed on her desk, Nash had wondered about Cassie Kramer admitting herself to the hospital to be placed in psychiatric care. What had forced her through the locked doors of Mercy Hospital on the heels of her sister’s disappearance and Lucinda Rinaldi’s near homicide? Nash had questioned if surrendering to psychiatric care had been a ploy, a slyly planned move that would ultimately be integral in her defense: insanity over guilt.

Something wasn’t right with the Sisters Kramer; she knew it.

But she didn’t know if Allie Kramer was dead or alive. That was a problem, a serious problem. Allie, and maybe Cassie, too, could be part of some intricate publicity stunt gone bad, or worse yet the victim of kidnapping or homicide.

Her ruminations brought more questions than answers, and her thoughts switched to the movie that was about to be released. Allie Kramer, Lucinda Rinaldi, and Holly Dennison were all a part of
Dead Heat,
which was to be released soon. A party to celebrate its opening was going to be held in the Hotel Danvers here in Portland. Everyone associated, at least those who could attend, would be in town, which might aid her in her investigation. She liked to talk to witnesses in person, face-to-face without relying on telephone calls or another cop’s notes and instincts.

Warm water lapped over her, foamy bubbles hissing lightly as they disintegrated. The wine helped ease the day’s tensions and frustrations from her muscles and bones. But her mind was spinning with half-baked theories and questions for Cassie Kramer.

There were more angles to consider as well.

Tomorrow, Nash thought, and finished her wine. Then she slid lower in the tub and stared upward through the surface of the water to look through the disappearing bubbles to the chandelier suspended overhead. The fixture dangled from the twenty-foot ceiling. She wondered, not for the first time, if the chandelier would ever fall and crash into the tub, maybe even kill her. Who, if anyone, would care? With no answer she held her breath as long as she could, silently counting off the seconds, trying to stay under as long as possible, fixating on the soft lights glowing overhead.

Her lungs began to ache.

She remained submerged.

She heard her heart beating in her ears under the water.

Her lungs were starting to scream.

Pain burned through her chest. Serious pain.

Her lungs were on fire.

She launched herself from the bottom of the tub and gulped in air. Huge lungfuls of air. She’d held her breath three seconds less than her best time.

Slowly, she drew in air through her nose and expelled it through her mouth. Her heartbeat slowed and her anger melted away. It was still early enough that she could read a chapter or two of the paperback that had been sitting on her night table, or watch TV before turning in. She should probably catch the news. But she probably wouldn’t. A much more likely scenario would be that she would spend the next few hours in bed, with her computer, perhaps a last glass of wine, while going over her notes in the Allie Kramer disappearance case.

Finally, as the bathwater cooled, she climbed out of the tub and didn’t bother to towel off, just slipped on the plush robe and bent down to blow out the candle and whisper softly, “ ’Night, Love.”

 

“D
o you know what time it is?” Dr. Sherling asked. Her voice was groggy with sleep.

Cassie had dialed the doctor’s cell phone number on impulse. She really hadn’t expected the psychiatrist to answer. She’d gotten lucky. She glanced at the readout on Trent’s DVR player. It read nine forty-seven.

“I know it’s late,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Grumpily, Dr. Sherling said, “All right. I’m awake now. Sort of. But I have rounds tomorrow at six.” She yawned. “I suppose you’re calling about that television documentary, or docudrama, or whatever it’s called these days, and my advice is to not watch it. If you want, you can schedule a session and we’ll discuss it. Call my office. In the morning.”

“What docudrama?”

“On one of those mystery channels. You know, unsolved cases or whatever. The woman . . . oh, what’s her name, the nosy reporter, she’s on it.”

“Whitney Stone.”

“Yes, yes, that’s the one.”

Cassie’s insides tightened. “It’s on tonight?”

“Yes, in a few minutes, I think, but it might be best if you don’t watch it. I saw a preview for it, and the story isn’t about your sister going missing, but about the near-death experience when you and your mother were kidnapped.”

Cassie’s pulse sped up. “I wasn’t calling about the program,” she said, and explained about her visit to the hospital during the day, how she’d wanted to see Steven Rinko and not being allowed, how she’d been thwarted and belittled by the receptionist.

“Constance can get a little territorial,” the doctor admitted.

“Downright nasty. And judgmental.”

“Really? I don’t think so.”

“For sure. Tre—my husband was with me. He can confirm.”

“You’re back with him?”

Cassie ignored the question. “The truth is I was so rattled I forgot to ask for the security tapes of my room.”

“There are none.”

“But there was a camera.”

“Never operational. New laws. No tapes.”

Cassie was flummoxed. She felt the air go out of her lungs. The tapes would have proven that the nurse out of the last century was inside her room.

“I think I was being watched.”

“Nonsense.” She said it as if it were fact, that anything untoward that Cassie may have felt or seen was paranoia and hallucinations. “The only ones watching you were the nurses who were assigned to you, and then not by camera. Only in person. We have hallway monitors and cameras, of course, but nothing in the patient rooms.”

“So if a nurse or doctor or aide slipped something they shouldn’t into my IV or food or whatever, there would be no record of it?”

“Not by camera. But we’d know from your monitors or lab results.”

“It might be too late then.”

“Too late?”

“If someone put something in my meds and I, you know, ended up dying.”

Dr. Sherling sighed audibly. “But you didn’t die.”

“Of course not. That was just a hypothetical situation.”

“All of our staff members, including Ms. Unger, go through rigorous background checks before they’re hired. Is that the reason you called so late on my private number?”

Didn’t she know that everything in Cassie’s life was an emergency? “I know it’s not life and death, but I need to know some things. Does anyone on the staff ever dress in uniforms from the past?”

“What?”

“Like the uniforms nurses used to wear,” Cassie went on doggedly.

“Not the scrubs they have on most of the time, but the outfits with heavy white shoes and white stockings and white dresses. Sometimes pointed caps and a blue cape.”

There was a long hesitation, then finally, very seriously, “Why are you asking?”

The truth would not help her cause. “Just curious.”

“There has to be a reason, and it has something more than curiosity behind it.”

“I thought I saw someone wearing an outfit like that one night.”

Another weighty pause. “I think we should talk about this in a session. In the office. If you’re having hallucinations again, then—”

“I’m not hallucinating. She was there. In my room. In that uniform, and she even left an earring.”

“An earring?”

“Yes! Red. In the shape of a cross.”

“And you know it was hers?”

That stopped her. Was it possible that someone else could have dropped it?

“Most of the nurses wear earrings.”

Had she seen the earrings on an actual caregiver at the hospital and then created them in her nightmarish dream? No, no, no. Steven Rinko had seen the nurse, too. He even knew the kind of car she drove and . . . but he suffered from delusions and hallucinations and boundary difficulties between what was real and what wasn’t.

Cassie’s throat went dry. She didn’t know what to say. Had she really put all her faith in a genius of a boy who often lived in a fantasy world?

“Listen, Cassie.” Dr. Sherling’s voice was soft again. Kind and caring. Or so it sounded. “Call my office in the morning. I’ll tell the staff I want to see you and they’ll fit you in tomorrow after rounds. I really do think it would be a good thing if we talked again. About your treatment. If not in the hospital then outpatient.”

All the spit dried in Cassie’s mouth. The doubts that were always with her assailed her again and she heard herself saying, “I will.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.” And then she clicked off. Cassie was left holding the phone and staring out the window. The fire was burning low in the wood stove, the dog curled into a ball and Trent . . . where was Trent? She heard a floorboard creak overhead and remembered he’d gone upstairs to sort out bills in the bedroom he used as an office.

She wanted to tell him about the phone call, but told herself she should deal with it herself; she couldn’t always go running to her husband. Hell, what a mess!

A headache started to form behind her eyes. She found the remote for Trent’s television, clicked on the flat screen, and scrolled through the stations until she found the cable channel that was hosting mystery shows. Sure enough, slated to be aired within a few minutes was
Justice: Stone Cold.
The subtitle read:
Terror in Ice.
The caption read like a horror story from her past:
Reporter Whitney Stone reviews the case that terrorized a small town in Oregon where celebrity actress Jenna Hughes was hunted and kidnapped by a serial killer who had targeted her and her daughters.

Cassie’s heart sank. Jenna’s stalker was part of a month-long marathon of shows on serial killers. It seemed from the menu that the hour-long shows were running back-to-back, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And as she checked the listings, she realized that this week, every twelve hours the show about the freak who had held her and her mother hostage ten years ago would run.

Over and over.

She shivered. Remembered the fear, the stark terror of waking up in his ice-cold lair, knowing that both she and her mother were doomed.

She dropped the remote and stared at the television as the program started. First there was Whitney Stone’s face, perfect makeup, long, black hair, hazel eyes staring into the camera’s lens. She was serious. Dressed in black. The screen behind her in shadows.

“We all know that Allie Kramer is missing, her whereabouts unknown, her condition undetermined. Police are investigating her disappearance as a missing person’s case, but there is always the fear that she may already be dead, her body hidden, maybe never to be found.”

Cassie’s throat closed and she felt faint.

But Whitney Stone plowed on. “We at
Justice: Stone Cold
are currently investigating Ms. Kramer’s disappearance and the bizarre events that happened in and around the set of her latest film,
Dead Heat
, which premieres soon. I promise you, we at
Justice: Stone Cold
will ferret out the truth, through exclusive interviews with Allie Kramer’s sister, Cassie, an actress in her own right, but with far less star power than that of her sister. There are questions about her relationship with her estranged sister and rumors of a love triangle between Allie and Cassie Kramer and Cassie’s husband, Trent Kittle.”

To Cassie’s horror, pictures of Allie, Trent, and herself flashed onto the screen while Whitney’s voice continued. “Who is this man?” A close-up of Trent, unshaven, in jeans and an open shirt, lounging against a western facade, one booted foot propped against the weathered boards of what appeared to be a saloon. Cassie recognized the picture as one he’d used when he was briefly a stuntman looking for work in Hollywood while dating her. “If that isn’t enough scandal in this bizarre tragedy,” Whitney went on in a voice-over, “add in the fact that Allie had been involved in a white-hot affair with her costar, Brandon McNary.” Trent’s image faded to be replaced by a sexy head shot of McNary smiling slyly into the camera. “Could he have played a part? All these questions will be answered in the next installment of
Justice: Stone Cold.
But tonight’s story is dedicated to another portion of Allie Kramer’s life, when she was still an impressionable teen, a schoolgirl in a small Oregon town, her mother, Jenna Hughes, a famous actress who had escaped the pressures, stress, and yes, dangers, of Hollywood.”

Cassie backed up until her calves hit the edge of the couch, where she dropped onto the cushions. Her eyes were trained on the screen and the debacle that was unfolding.

Her common sense was silently screaming at her.

In a poorly acted sequence with commercial breaks cutting into the action, the story that had haunted Cassie since her teenage years was played out. She saw unknown actresses play the parts of her mother, her boyfriend, Allie, and, of course, herself. A man who resembled the murderer was also on-screen as he stalked the actress who played Jenna and re-created the terrible ordeal that she had lived through. Interspersed were actual clips from news reports of the horror that had claimed their lives.

In one sequence of footage of her family that had been shot just afterward, Jenna was ushering her children inside the house, waiflike Allie was clinging to her mother, while Cassie threw a dark, angry look at whoever was manning the camera. Quickly, Jenna eased her daughters through the door and away from the public’s eye, but outside, even with the door firmly shut, the camera kept filming, sweeping across the wide front porch to focus on a window where Allie appeared and stared through the glass panes. Then the picture on the screen changed, morphing into Allie nearing adulthood. The same wide-eyed innocence was visible on the older Allie as she stared through another window. That now iconic image had become the poster for
Wait Until Christmas,
one of the films that had caught the attention of the American public and propelled Allie into stardom.

A cold shiver ran down Cassie’s spine as the image faded back to the first shot again, of young Allie peering through the window of the family home. Even at her tender age, just after a life-shattering ordeal, Allie had been able to exude an ethereal quality. But in the next second, that image was destroyed as Jenna appeared and quickly yanked her daughter from the window. A second later the blinds snapped shut.

“Cass?” Trent’s voice brought her back to the present. He took one look at the television. “What’re you doing? What is this?” He found the remote on the floor and clicked the TV off. Then he gazed hard at Cassie.

“I wanted to see what Whitney had to say.” She felt compelled to defend herself.

“And?”

“Probably not a good idea.”

He tossed the remote onto the couch. “You okay?”

She nodded, not really sure.

He waited, the fire hissing, the dog snoring softly, the seconds ticking by. “Let’s call it a night.”

“I can sleep down here?” she asked, motioning to the couch.

“If you don’t watch any more trash TV.”

“Okay, Daddy,” she mocked.

“Or you could come upstairs.”

“With you?”

“Definitely with me.” His smile was an invitation and she wondered what it would hurt. They were married, not that their marriage was the crux of her hesitation. They’d slept in the same bed last night. Nothing had happened between them, except for the fact she’d felt more secure and safe than she had in months.

But now there was a tiny gleam in his eye, the hint of sexuality that stirred a response in her. It wasn’t the sex itself that scared her, it was the emotional devastation that was sure to follow any intimacy.

It had happened before.

“I think I’ll stay down here.”

His lopsided grin became more pronounced, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Suit yourself.” He found the sleeping bag and pillow in the front closet again and tossed them onto the leather couch. “Hud will keep you company. But if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

He pushed away from the doorjamb, walked to the front hallway and locked the door, then headed up the stairs, his boots ringing on each step and echoing in her heart. Should she just quit fighting it? Follow him up the stairs? Forget about all the pain of their short marriage? Actually start over as he’d suggested?

Biting her lip, she eyed the leather couch and the sleeping bag and pillow lying on the cold cushions. The rain was beating a soft tattoo against the windowpanes and she told herself she was just being stubborn. A night in Trent’s bed did not a commitment make. Nor would it compromise any of her moral standards, whatever they may be. Sleeping with Trent’s body curled next to hers wasn’t some kind of sin or sign of weakness. It didn’t mean that she’d decided to throw out all of her convictions or suspicions. It wasn’t as if they were in a battle and he’d won.